Sweet Release
by hatake-mistress
Summary: Just something I wrote for my english class. Ignore the category - it's an original story. Anyway, regret can eat us all alive and for Marissa it simply consumes her and drives her past the point of sanity. Rated M for graphic-ness


Sweet Release

I was sitting in my old navy armchair, sipping tea and reading Sense and Sensibility. Don't ask me why, but that book always just seemed to call me back to it.

My eyes started to grow weary, so I looked out my tattered black curtains, and tried to see through the frost stained window, but to no avail. I got up from the chair and shoved open the frozen window. The cold winter air was refreshing, because the heater in my small cottage was turned up all the way.

The sky was illuminated with a full blood moon. I stared at it for a moment, recalling stories my grandfather would tell me when I was a little girl. My grandfather was a senile old man and never had a filtering system in his brain, so anything he felt like saying came out.

I remember he told me that a full blood moon would make people go crazy with guilt or regret. Things they had done or failed to do would haunt them and drive them to the point of insanity then suicide.

One story he told me piqued my interest the most. I could almost hear my grandfather's voice telling me the story all over again so I closed my eyes and just listened.

"It was nearly forty years ago that this happened. I had been night fishing, and I was with my good friend Shamus Atwood.

His daughter had recently died, so I thought it would be a good idea to take him fishing with me, to cheer him up.

There was a full blood moon rising high in the sky, and when it reached its peak Shamus began to look around frantically. He stood up suddenly and started to shout, 'Lucy! Lucy! Where are you?'

I didn't know what to do, so I just sat in the boat watching him search the dark waters frantically.

He kept watching the water, not saying a word, his eyes constantly searching. He looked troubled and lost, but it only showed in his eyes, the rest of his face was a stone mask.

He broke out of his revere several moments later. Shamus grabbed his hook out of the water, held it up to his neck, and whispered 'I'm sorry Lucy.' He stuck it as far into his neck as he could, then continue to drag it across his throat.

There was blood everywhere."

My grandfather's voice faded as I opened my eyes. I always wondered if that story was actually true.

I turned away from the window and walked toward the door. When I put my hand on the knob I suddenly got a funny feeling. It was something I had never felt before...maybe it was guilt or regret. I didn't know, so I shook off the feeling and stepped onto the concrete.

I took a few steps out onto the field, and the cool wet grass on the bottom of my feet felt wonderful. Once again I looked up at the moon, and noticed it was directly above me.

My grandfather's story kept running through my mind, and I couldn't help the ominous feeling that crept over me.

Everything was completely silent until I heard a voice, "Why did you do it?"

I whipped around, searching everywhere for the origin of the all too familiar voice.

"Who's there?!" I shouted, apparently to no one.

"You know what you did." That damn voice was there again.

"I haven't done anything!"

"What, don't you remember?" The voice was mocking me now.

"Remember what? I don't remember doing anything wrong!" I was starting to become freaked out, because I could hear the voice and it could hear me, but I couldn't see it.

"Think really hard Marissa. November 17, 1998"

When the voice spoke the date everything came back to me in a huge rush.

_-Flashback-_

It was 1:30 am on November 17, and I had been at a sorority party with a bunch of my friends. I was drinking shots left and right, almost anything that was put in front of me.

We hadn't though ahead so we didn't have a designated driver. I was sadly the most sober of the group, so I volunteered to be one of the drivers.

My friend Lydia and I were leaving early, so we got into her truck. Everything was kind of blurry, and the road looked like it was moving under the car.  
Lydia was busy chatting my ear off, as usual. She had a huge crush on a guy named Emmet Sanders, and talked about him constantly.

"Today in physics he asked to borrow my calculator, and guess what!"

"What?" I wasn't terribly interested, because she never had any ground breaking interactions with him.

"As I was passing it to him he touched my hand!" She started to squeal, and I couldn't help but laugh.

After that the car was silent for a while, and when I looked over at her she had her head resting against the window, and was sound asleep.

I heard a car horn, and whipped my head around. I didn't even notice that I was on the wrong side of the road, so I swerved to the right and the passenger side collided with the semi. The car was thrown off the side of the road, and into a ditch.

I groaned, and looked at Lydia. Her head had smashed into the window, and I could see the blood pouring out of her skull. She wasn't breathing, so I panicked and moved her into the driver's seat to make it look like she had been driving with no one else in the car.

I looked over myself and I wasn't even hurt at all, so I ran off into the trees, and walked all the way home.

When I woke up I had no recollection of the night before. One of my friends called me and told me that Lydia had died trying to drive home drunk._38___

I forgot about the incident and my involvement in it.  
  
_-End Flashback-  
_  
My facial turned into one of absolute horror as Lydia's voice spoke again.

"So now you remember. Now, after 11 years, you remember what you did to me, and how you weasled your way out of being blamed." Her voice was laced with malice, and it was really starting to upset me.

"Lydia, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to..." I trailed off, because I didn't want to say it.

"Didn't mean to what?"

"I..." I just couldn't say it.

"SAY IT!" She was screaming at me, and I jumped and tears started pouring down my cheeks.46

"KILL YOU! I didn't mean to kill you!" I was sobbing now, and I couldn't stop. I fell onto my knees with my head in my hands.47

"That's right, it's all your fault."

I curled my body into a fetal position on the cool grass, "It's all my fault, it's all my fault..."

I looked up at the moon again and I couldn't take the guilt..the regret. It was eating away at me.

I looked around my yard and saw a broken piece from a pot that had broken a week ago. I crawled over to it and picked it up.

The sharp edge was so alluring, it was just calling my name, inviting me to release myself from this new onslaught of feelings.

I stood up and held it to the bottom of my forearm and dragged it up to the top of my bicep. I did the same to my other arm, and just watched as the thick, red liquid poured over the ivory colored skin of my arm.

As the blood was flowing out of me I could feel the guilt and pain flooding out as well. It was as if my blood was holding it all this time.

I wanted to be free, oh how I wanted to be free so badly. I raised the instrument up to my neck, ignoring the pain in my arms, and slowly, ever so slowly, dragged it across my skin.

I could feel as the skin slowly ripped open, and the blood seeped out. Once the laceration was all the way across my neck I laid down in the cool grass and stared at the moon. I was slipping away and was loving every second of it.

"My sweet release." I whispered as my body went limp and I slipped into oblivion forever.

I guess now I know that those stories my grandfather told me were true.


End file.
